Leeds Rhinos long-term thinking full of promise

That will be music to the ears of fans who have seen so much muddled thinking in recent times, the club facing relegation fights in three of the last four seasons.

They start against Hull FC at Emerald Headingley on Sunday in Super League’s first-ever double-header with Toronto Wolfpack v Caslteford Tigers the first act. With new signings such as Luke Gale and Matt Prior, Agar – who took over from the sacked Dave Furner initially on a caretaker basis in May – is clearly beginning to make his own impact.

“We’re lucky enough that we played in front of a packed house a couple of weeks ago in a fairly unique and emotional occasion,” he said, referring to the testimonial game for Jamie Jones-Buchanan and Rob Burrow.

“This promises to be a massive day, too. Obviously the game aside from ours is going to create a lot of interest with Toronto’s first game and – touch wood – Sonny Bill Williams making his debut.

“But for ourselves we feel like we started on our journey at the back end of last year.

“We’ve had some changes to our team and think we’ve strengthened our squad so we are looking forward to it.

“We feel we’re in a position now as a team where we’ll only start to get better now when we start to play opposition. There’s only so much training, trial games and getting into each other that you can do.

“We’re confident that we are building and hopefully we can build something to last and something that will really compete well this year.”

Lee Radford’s Hull are seen as one of the favourites to cause some surprises in Super League this term.

Agar said: “Something that stands out about their recruitment is size and power. Lee’s had really good success the last few years with some recruitment in big, explosive bodies.

“They are chockablock full of that across the board when you look at the wingers with Mahe Fonua in there.

“They’ve strengthened their forwards with bulk and power and with the explosive nature of their players we know we will have to handle and combat that power on Sunday when we get underway.”

The former Hull and Wakefield Trinity coach, who was appointed as Furner’s permanent successor in September, is pleased with the overhaul of his squad.

“Our roster needed some work,” he added, with Huddersfield Giants duo Kruise Leeming and Alex Mellor other major new arrivals.

“We still don’t think we’re there yet. We’d still love to add a player or two but we’re in a position where we don’t want to make any hasty signings because we’ve got the cap space.

“We need someone who is right for our squad and who can take it forward. We’re also building a rosta to create a pathway for what we think are some precocious young talents and one that will last for a number of seasons not one where we’re going to be chopping and changing around too next year as well.

“We’re really happy with our experienced players; Galey’s come in and, as you would expect, is marshalling the troops around.

“Matt Prior is a no fuss, no-nonsense, really consistent performer and we think we’re starting to get nice balance to it - and a rosta we think will evolve really, really well.”